Cannabis Blog

Imagine a world where pot is legal, regulated, and taxed. In this world, Missouri is rolling around in a giant pile of money and making it rain all over the place.

That's according to a new study released by the National Cannabis Coalition in conjunction with Show-Me Cannabis. The group commissioned the study from Harvard University economist Dr. Jeffrey Miron as a way to put some cold, hard figures on their marijuana legalization and regulation bill.

The $149 million comes from several different places, but mostly from no longer having to police and prosecute pot smokers.

According to Show-Me Cannabis's John Payne, the group commissioned the study while their 2012 legalization campaign was still alive and well. Because of that, Missouri's study came out first, but he says there will be studies for all 50 states at some point.

According to Dr. Miron's figures, Missouri's government would save $90 million annually and generate $59 million from taxing legalized marijuana like cigarettes and booze.

It's not hard to see where the $90 million comes from. In 2011, there were 307,240 arrests made in Missouri over pot and 91.5 percent of those were for possession. Imagine all that gets thrown out the window -- no more cops trolling for smokers, planning stings on dealers; no more court cases for prosecutors, judges, or public defenders; no more paying to put up tokers in Le Hotel Clink. That's a lot of free money all of the sudden.

Interestingly, Miron says that the $149 million figure is roughly the same for all the states, should they choose to legalize pot. And though he concedes his study has generated criticism from both those who say the figures are inflated and those who say they're too small, the exact dollar amount isn't as important as the fundamental question behind the debate.

"I don't think we should care about the shape of this, the crucial thing to me is making it legal reather than illegal," he says. "The main thing I hope people think about is, 'Why should the government be intervening with individuals using marijuana?"

More trouble in Celebrity Drugville: Rapper Nelly was detained in Texas Wednesday night after police officers uncovered a bounty of drugs and a loaded gun on his tour bus.

TMZ reports that the 37-year-old "Hot in Herre" singer was passing through the Sierra Blanca border patrol -- the same tricky checkpoint 30 miles north of Mexico where Fiona Apple, Willie Nelson, Armie Hammer and Snoop Dogg also got drug-busted -- when a police canine indicated that there were drugs aboard the vehicle. Law enforcement sources then found a whopping stash of illegal substances, including 36 small bags of heroin, 10 pounds of marijuana and a .45 caliber pistol.

All seven passengers of the tour bus were detained. Nelly (whose real name is Cornell Iral Haynes, Jr.) and five others were released after passenger Brian Keith Jones claimed that he was in sole possession of the drugs and gun aboard. The rapper is set to perform in Austin, Texas, next month as part of the COTA Austin fan Fest with peers Flo Rida and Enrique Iglesias.

Washington may become the first state in the nation to approve recreational sales of marijuana, according to the Associated Press. The marijuana would be taxed and sold at state-licensed shops to customers 21 and over.

The sale of this recreational marijuana may be approved on Nov. 6 if Initiative 502, a measure on the November ballot that would decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, is passed, according to The Seattle Times.

If I-502 passes the following will be enacted (via the AP):

Public use or display of marijuana would be barred.

No marijuana facilities could be located near schools, day cares, parks or libraries.

Employers would still be able to fire workers who test positive for pot.

It would remain illegal to privately grow marijuana for recreational use, though medical patients could still grow their own or designate someone to grow it for them.

It would be illegal to drive with more than 5 nanograms of THC, the active ingredient of cannabis, per milliliter of blood, if the driver is over 21; for those under 21, there would be a zero tolerance policy.

“There’s a real disconnect with pot,” Brooke Thompson, a retired teacher from Bainbridge Island who smoked marijuana when she was a young adult, told the AP. “It’s been criminalized and criminals are making money on it. The state could be making money on it, and using the taxes to go into education. It seems like a win-win, and it would be nice for Washington to be the testing ground on this.”

"Testing ground" is the key component. In Washington state, more than 241,000 people have been arrested for marijuana possession throughout the past 25 years, many of who were arrested in the past 10 years, according to a new study by a New York-based group of academics. These arrests have cost about $305.7 million over the past 25 years and $194 million in the past 10 years alone.

Legalizing and taxing marijuana at the same rate as alcohol and tobacco could save the United States up to $13.7 billion annually, according to Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron. About $7.7 billion could be saved by not having to enforce the current prohibition and about $6.2 billion could be yielded in taxes.